China Punctures Asia Pivot with South China Sea Provocations

The missile deployment was followed, according to a Fox News report on February 23^rd, by the dispatch of fighter jets to the same disputed island just as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Washington for talks on tensions over both the South China Sea and North Korea. Wang was quoted as stating before his departure from Beijing that the deployment of the missiles was for “defensive purposes.” The Chinese Foreign Minister also called for a cessation of U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the disputed waters, stating “we don’t hope to see any more close-up military reconnaissance or the dispatch of missile destroyers or strategic bombers to the South China Sea.”

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson went further, stating that “there is no difference between China’s deployment of necessary national defense facilities on its own territory and the defense installation by the U.S. in Hawaii.” Foreign Minister Wang’s Washington host, Secretary of State John Kerry, gave an anemic response to these declarations. He refused to single out China, saying only that “it is important for all of the nations (with claims in the South China Sea) – China, Philippines, Vietnam, others – not to engage in any unilateral steps of reclamation, of building, of militarization. And the fact is that there have been steps by China, by Vietnam, by others that have unfortunately created an escalatory cycle.” The Pentagon’s reaction was more forceful, with the reported cancelling of a February 23^rd visit by Foreign Minister Wang due to a “scheduling conflict.”

President Obama did indicate at Sunnylands that the United States would not be deterred from further FONOPs in the South China Sea. The Washington Post reported on February 17^th that the Obama Administration intends to have “a very serious conversation” with Beijing on the missile deployment. This follows increasing regional concerns over Beijing’s ongoing land reclamation projects on disputed islands as well as its construction of airstrips on coral reefs. Secretary Kerry stated, that the missile deployment “was at odds” with a pledge made by Chinese President Xi Jinping while visiting the White House last year to refrain from militarizing the disputed islands. Beijing, on the other hand, was dismissive of the missile deployment report, claiming through its state media that defenses had been in place on Woody Island “for years,” denying any militarization of the island. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated at a news conference that the whole missile deployment issue was the result of attempts by “certain Western media to create news stories.” Yet, at a Statesmen’s Forum presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on February 25, Wang expressed some irritation when asked about the pending case that the Philippines has brought before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague regarding South China Sea territorial disputes with China. While asserting that Beijing’s actions are consistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and international law, Wang seemed to dismiss the Philippines lawsuit (Beijing does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction to arbitrate the dispute) as little more than “big country, little country” politics.

China’s assertive behavior, however, was reportedly much on the minds of ASEAN leaders as they gathered on February 15^th in California. Reuterspointed out, in a February 17^th report, that “a joint statement agreed on after a two-day summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at the Sunnylands retreat in California did not include the specific mentions Washington had been seeking regarding China and its assertive pursuit of territory in the South China Sea.” China, like Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, apparently hangs as a dark specter over the region as “he who cannot be named.” Given the ASEAN requirement for consensus, the fact that Beijing has current ASEAN chair Laos, as well as Cambodia, in its back pocket assured that no China-specific critical language would be included in the Sunnylands joint statement.

Other allies are apparently equally concerned by the lack of pizzazz in the Obama pivot. Fumio Ota, a retired Vice Admiral of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces, recently wrote that “if fighters, SAMs, and relevant radar facilities are deployed, however, they may be used to take actions forcing intruding aircraft to withdraw. The deployment of such equipment may expand China’s effective control on the South China Sea horizontally and vertically.” Ota cautioned that Beijing could seek to maneuver in the closing months of the Obama Administration, noting that “China’s establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the South China Sea after such action in the East China Sea could be a matter of time.”

While the security component of the just-completed ASEAN Sunnylands summit certainly ended under a cloud, given the reports of a Chinese surface-to-air missile deployment in Southeast Asian waters, President Obama presented the summit also as an opportunity to forge greater economic ties with ASEAN, America’s fourth-largest export market. The Joint Statement issued at the summit’s conclusion, named “the Sunnylands Declaration,” stated that the U.S-ASEAN relationship “was elevated…to a strategic partnership” and noted “The importance of shared prosperity, sustainable, inclusive economic growth and development.” A vital component for forging stronger commercial ties with Southeast Asia is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which the Obama Administration has negotiated as a key to its Asian “rebalance” and to counter growing Chinese regional mercantile interests. Four ASEAN members, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, are among the twelve Pacific Rim nations which signed the trade agreement.

However, Congressional ratification of TPP during the current heated election season in the United States is anything but assured. Two of the leading presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, are on record as opposing TPP as a denigrated job destroyer for America’s workers. House Speaker Paul Ryan also said on Fox News on February 14^th that he “doesn’t see where the votes are right now” to pass the TPP.

With Beijing carrying out a missile build-up among the very islands where the U.S Navy only recently conducted FONOPs, with the U.S. unable to forge consensus language with ASEAN members on the rising Chinese military threat in the disputed South China Sea, and with the TPP trade agreement going nowhere fast in an election year, the recently completed ASEAN Sunnylands Summit seemed long on pomp and circumstance but short on substance. The rotational deployment of up to 2,500 U.S. Marines to Darwin in northern Australia, a key element of the Asian pivot, cannot negate the growing menace of Beijing’s surface-to-air missiles. So, although President Obama reportedly opened the recent summit with a sentimental reference to his boyhood to Indonesia, it was Xi Jinping and his missiles that cast a long shadow over Sunnylands and beyond.

Dennis P. Halpin, a former adviser on Asian issues to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a visiting scholar at the U.S-Korea Institute (SAIS) and an adviser to the Poblete Analysis Group.